


to know me as hardly golden;

by becausemagnets



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:49:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2727815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becausemagnets/pseuds/becausemagnets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Howard Stark makes him feel seasick. Steve makes him feel plain sick. Agent Carter makes him feel like he's coming down with scarlet fever. He's not sick when he's falling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to know me as hardly golden;

**Author's Note:**

> just more dealing with Bucky post-Zola's table, pre-fall. And a little after.

Howard Stark makes him feel seasick. 

There’s not a better word for how hard and fast his stomach sinks to the floor, weighed down like he’s been swallowing stones all afternoon. Stark’s wearing a blue pin-striped collared shirt, the sleeves rolled up and rebuttoned at his elbows, and his pants are held up by narrow-strap suspenders. He’s got a huge grease stain in the middle of his shirt and he wipes more across his face when he pushes his hair back from his forehead. Definitely not a military cut and trim. He sticks a hand out to Bucky, smiling wide, his eyes bright and focused, looking at Bucky like he’s a piece of machinery. Like he could see straight through him and exactly how Zola--Hydra--had rearranged his gears. 

Bucky almost doesn’t take his hand, but Steve’s hand on the small of his back is a dead weight and he pushes Bucky forward, nodding gentle encouragement. Stark’s grip is tight, authoritative, and Bucky loses his sea legs. If he’d ever gotten them back. He does his best to keep the queasiness out of his face, but he’s hot and cold all over. Stark raises an eyebrow, grabs him with both arms before he folds into himself. “It’s nice to meet you, Sergeant Barnes. Captain, you should get him to the sick bay. Immediately.” 

It comes out in slow confessions, how long he’d been on that table, repeating his name, rank, and number. What drugs they’d been pumping into him. What information they’d been trying to get out of him. He tells Colonel Phillips matter of factly, but he never says a word unless Steve is in the medical ward, too. Steve also tells him about Erskine and Agent Carter and Howard Stark, the Red Skull and the Hydra bases. Bucky doesn’t ask him too many questions, his head still swimming. He had been certain he was going to die on that table. That he deserved to die on that table. That Steve would be back home in Brooklyn, waiting for Bucky's first shore leave to spend all the stipends he’d been saving up for the two of them, but Steve’s first act of war had been to break express command from a superior officer and cross enemy lines to save a single sergeant in the 107th infantry who didn’t even believe, couldn’t even believe, that he was worth saving. 

He can tell by the way Steve talks, still, that the war hasn’t touched him the same way it’s touched Bucky. Sergeant Barnes. Even before he led the 107 right into a trap he couldn’t get them out of, he’d spent so much time sleeping in trenches with caked dirt in his mouth and gunfire as his alarm clock. He’d had blood splattered on his own face, put pressure against wounds he knew were fatal, shot someone right in the stomach and watched the light fade out of their eyes. Even if he had never become Captain America, those are things Steven Grant Rogers from Brooklyn would never experience, no matter how much time he spent in the war. Steve made better choices. Nobler choices. Choices like pulling Bucky off of that table when he had resolved himself to die right there, remembering the taste of cotton candy on his tongue from the days spent in Coney Island with Steve’s little arm looped through his. 

Stark comes into the sick bay when Steve’s called away by the Colonel. As if Steve has asked him to watch over Bucky. It isn’t doing anything to improve his condition and when he starts feeling a little more himself, he tells Stark as much. Stark throws his head back and laughs. He laughs from his stomach, deep and heartfelt and unapologetic. The laugh of a man who hasn’t ever had to care what other people think of him. “Is that so? You don’t like me much, do you, Barnes?” 

It’s not quite true. Howard Stark makes him uneasy. He’s a man out of fiction. The first time Bucky had seen his face had been in an old, tattered magazine in the waiting room at the free clinic, describing him as the “civil engineer of the future.” He belongs to a world that is vastly different from the one Bucky’s currently living in. He remembers watching him up on stage at his World Exposition of Tomorrow, the night before he shipped out, thinking that Stark was a perfect symbol of the American spirit and ingenuity, a confirmation that he had made the right choice in enlisting and that men like Stark would be holding down the fort for himself and all the men overseas, ensuring that the world they came back to was better than the one they’d left. He wouldn’t have left Steve if he hadn’t felt the solid, reassuring presence of Howard Stark from thirty feet away. Even if his flying car hadn’t worked out. 

All of that is hard to explain and much too heavy of a conversation to have with a man who could buy half of New York if he felt the inclination, so instead Bucky agrees with him. No, he doesn’t like Stark much, and he doesn’t understand what he’s doing hanging around like he’s going to win the war with flying cars. Stark laughs again, leaning back in the legs of the folding chair next to Bucky’s cot. “You really don’t pull any punches, Rogers was right. He warned me about your lip, well before we knew we’d be meetin’ up with you. But I saved your life, didn’t I? That’s gotta be worth something to the war effort, huh? Captain America’s best friend.” 

Bucky winces and turns his face away. He hears the soft plunk of the chair as Stark puts all four legs back on the ground. “Barnes. I didn’t mean anything by that. I was just pulling your leg right back.” Bucky doesn’t say anything. He can feel Stark’s body heat, hovering over him, but Bucky still doesn’t turn around, pulling his blankets tighter around himself. “Come on, kid. I wasn’t tryin’ to hurt your feelings. It’s a big deal that Cap got you out around here. It’s the only reason that the Colonel’s letting him get involved. It could be the major turning point in the war, a huge part of history. And here we are, two kids from New York right in the middle of it.” 

Bucky laughs bitterly, coughing most of it up and out like his lungs are filled with water. Stark is standing next to him, his hand on the bedrail. There’s always dirt under his fingernails. “History remembers heroes. We’re not heroes.” 

Stark’s hand hovers over his shoulder, as if he’s afraid to actually touch him. As if the bone deep sadness that’s got him waiting his days out in the sick bay is actually contagious. But his grip on Bucky’s shoulder is as solid and real as the rest of him and Bucky’s stomach surges up into his throat, all acid and burning, his head spinning again. Stark squeezes him, hard. “You’re a hero, soldier.” 

By then, Steve’s back. He thumps Stark on the back and takes over the chair. Stark clears his throat, his hand dropping back to the bedrail quickly. He mumbles some excuse about needing to check on the new generators and he’s gone, adjusting his suspenders on his shoulders as he passes through the tent and back into the camp. Steve raises an eyebrow at Bucky, asking him what they’d talked about. “Flying cars,” Bucky tells him, pressing his face into his pillow.   
\-- 

Steve makes him feel plain sick. 

Guilty for having been able-bodied so long and doing so little with it. Tired of beating his head against the brick wall of Steve’s unbending ideology for all the years he can remember. Nausea stirring in the pit of his stomach as everyone looks up at Steve now and sees what Bucky has always seen and kept to himself--the secret, little wonder that had always been simply his. It brings bile up into his mouth to think that it took Steve turning into a prime physical specimen for anyone to realize how invaluable he is. It’s not jealousy. You have to have even an ounce of self-worth and will to live to be jealous of someone and Bucky would rather be six feet under than anything else, but it’s as insidious and damaging and he knows Steve can sense it, all of this ill will bottled up inside him all of the time. 

Colonel Phillips tells him he’s glad to have him on the team. Read his file and knows how well he’d done in sniper training, his sixteen weeks in basic, moving up to the rank of sergeant before he’d even shipped out. Very impressive, he tells him. “You can do the things that Captain America can’t be seen doing. You understand that, son? You understand what that means?” 

Bucky understands all too well. He just doesn’t think Steve does. His idea of the war is one isolated mission, one meeting with the Red Skull and the biggest names in Hydra’s organization. He doesn’t know what it’s like to look at your hands and know that the simple movement of one finger is the difference between life and death for a man who you would never even know. It all feels so unreal, standing in oversized tents in Italy, planning a world war with figurines and tacks on a map. But Sergeant Barnes is Captain America’s right hand man, whether he asked for the “honor” or not, and he’s consulted at every strategy meeting as if he hadn’t strategized his way right into Hydra’s hands. 

Howard Stark is always there, too, and he looks just as out of place. He’s wearing a tie like he’s attending a formal dinner, but his sleeves are still rolled up and buttoned passed his elbow. His suspenders are wider, cutting across his chest. He exchanges a glance with Bucky and jerks a thumb to the open flap, raising an eyebrow. Bucky shrugs and tells Steve he’ll be right back, making sure the two of them aren’t seen disappearing together. 

He hasn’t talked to Stark since that day in the sick bay. Stark wiggles a pack of Lucky Strikes out of his back pocket and hands one to Bucky without asking if he’d like one. Bucky hasn’t had a cigarette since he got out of the Hydra base. He’d stopped asking for them as part of his rations when he got back with Steve, although now it seems ridiculous considering the first thing Erskine’s serum probably got rid of was his asthma. Stark flips open his lighter and lights Bucky’s cigarette for him like they’re in a bar and not standing outside of a military tent in the middle of a world war. He lights his own cigarette and takes a long draw, smiling at Bucky as he pushes the smoke out through his nose. 

“You ever think about what you’re going to do when the war is over?” Stark asks him, his voice raspy. There’s no light out there except the stars and the moon and they all seem to be behind Stark, giving him an ethereal quality through backlighting that doesn’t help the overall effect on Bucky’s swimming head. He’s always out to sea when he’s around Stark. 

Nope, he doesn’t. He doesn’t believe he’s coming home. He flicks ash on the ground, watching the smoke disappear over both of their heads like a ghost. “What about Captain Rogers? What do you think he’s going to do after the war?” Hopefully find himself a dame and settle down, have a couple of kids, tell them stories about their Uncle Bucky who died in the war before they were even swimmers in their daddy’s nutsack. Stark laughs, coughing up smoke. “You don’t want that for yourself? Nice, pretty dame and a couple of kids hanging off of your arms?” Bucky shakes his head, doesn’t elaborate, watching his cigarette burn down to embers. He holds it until it burns the tips of his fingers, stubbing it out under a boot. Stark tosses his down and Bucky stubs his out, too. “Do you not want them or do you not believe you deserve them?” 

Bucky looks at Stark, smoke making his eyes feel raw and watery. “Do you? Do you think I deserve a life like that?” 

Stark’s mouth twitches up and he cups the back of Bucky’s neck. It’s oddly intimate and it’s only the fact that he’s back under a rigorous military training schedule that Bucky’s knees don’t buckle underneath him. “You deserve any life you want, Sergeant Barnes. You know where to find me if you want another cigarette.” 

Bucky doesn’t put them on his rations list, although he should.   
\-- 

Agent Carter makes him feel like he’s coming down with scarlet fever. 

He remembers how Steve had been when he’d caught scarlet fever, almost bad enough that he couldn’t finish high school, out for months and not getting better, and that’s what he feels like, looking at the picture of her in Steve’s compass. She’s gorgeous in the way that women in all of the motion pictures Steve had dragged him to back home were--too beautiful to be borne, practically. Not the girls he’d taken dancing and disappeared into the darker corners of Brooklyn with. A world apart, like everything else in this damn war. He holds Steve’s compass open almost as much as Steve himself does, running his fingers over the edge of the picture, knowing it’s the only way he’ll ever get to touch a woman like Agent Carter. 

Her relationship with Stark is something out of fiction, too. Their easy camaraderie. He can tell from Stark’s ribald jokes and the way the other men treat him that he’s got a reputation as a ladies’ man and he’s seen some of the girls that work in the sick bay leaving his tent early in the morning. But Agent Carter doesn’t behave as if she doesn’t know it’s happening or that Stark doesn’t have the kind of wealth that could make her life incredibly difficult if he felt the need to. 

He can see what Steve sees in both of them, but it doesn’t make him feel any better, constantly nauseous and feverish and tired. He asks Stark for a cigarette about two weeks after the first one, propped up against a weapons caravan. The Howling Commandos are shipping out in three days time and Stark’s not coming with them. Bucky half wishes he would, but it’s probably best he doesn’t. “What am I going to do without cigarettes for a whole six weeks, though?” he asks, leaning his head back against the metal frame of the truck. 

“What are you going to do without _dames_ for a whole six weeks? I don’t know, the prospect of waking up to Dugan’s face everyday would be enough for me to give up the soldiering life.” Stark flicks an ash at him when Bucky doesn’t reply. “You do like dames, don’t you, Sergeant Barnes? I’ve seen the way you look at Agent Carter.” 

Like she’s an apparition. That’s how he looks at Agent Carter. Certainly not with any sexual interest. “I’ve got a better shot with Dum Dum, I think.” 

Stark laughs, smacking Bucky across the knee. He feels like he’s going overboard every time Stark touches him, the whole world turning upside down. “You could have anyone you want, you know. James.” 

Bucky could throw up right then, but he takes another cigarette out of the pack at their feet and lights it with shaking hands. James. No one had called him James since his mother died. All of that felt like it had happened to another person. Like Bucky had heard all of his life before the war from someone else’s mouth, hearsay of his own life. “I’m being quite serious. I’ve been all over the world and I’ve had a lot more people than you’ve ever seen. And I’m telling you, you could have anyone.” Stark thumps himself on the chest, clearing smoke out of his lungs. “Even Agent Carter. Even me.” 

Bucky doesn’t say anything. Stark puts his hand on Bucky’s thigh, higher than before, squeezing hard. “Are you listening to what I’m saying, James?” 

Bucky stubs his cigarette out on the bottom of his boot and laces his fingers through Stark’s on his thigh. He turns his face into Stark’s, mouth slightly parted, breathing hard in the space between them. He’d like to pretend it’s Stark that closes the distance between them, but it’s Bucky. Ready to drown if he has to. Stark tastes like the Lucky Strikes and his moustache tickles, but his tongue is hot and heavy enough in Bucky’s mouth for him to forget about that. Stark’s hand is inching up higher on his thigh, hot enough through Bucky’s fatigues to warm up the rest of him, and he kisses like he’s had a lot of practice, getting his other hand up in Bucky’s hair, repositioning Bucky’s head just how he wants it to tangle their tongues together again. Stark’s hand is solid between his legs, gripping him and stiffening him up without much effort, and then he’s tugging on Bucky’s bottom lip with his teeth, groaning when he finally pulls back, his eyes bright and terrifying. 

Bucky’s out to sea with no life raft. He knows that now. He hasn’t made any decisions since his “rescue.” This is the first choice he’s made, besides the choice to follow Steve which had really been more of a death wish than anything else. “Come back with me and I’ll give you something to remember me by, Sergeant Barnes.” His hand between Bucky’s legs is a promise that he’s not likely to forget. 

Stark sinks to his knees in front of Bucky, his own legs spread wide so he can get a hand in his pants. There’s dirt all over both of them, but Stark doesn’t seem to mind, licking and sucking at the junction of Bucky’s hip. Bucky gets his fingers in Stark’s hair, smoothing it back away from his forehead, tensing and untensing his fingers in it, but not hard enough to pull. Stark’s breath is hot all over him. He can feel him everywhere, even in the tips of his fingers and toes. Stark’s mouth is as unforgiving as the rest of him, merciless as he takes all of Bucky’s length over and over again, not gagging once. He knows he’s good at it, so Bucky shoves one of his knuckles into his mouth to keep his reassurances to a minimum, but his legs are shaking, threatening to give out at any moment. 

They do give out, but Stark anticipates it, scooping a hand underneath his legs, supporting his entire weight like it’s easy, and guiding them both down flat to the ground, never lifting his mouth off of Bucky once. Stark comes before Bucky does, hips jumping up into his own fist, and he smears some of his cum along Bucky’s fatigues, but Bucky can hardly say anything, his fingers knotted up in Stark’s hair, every muscle in his body screaming for his own release. He kicks his legs out underneath Stark and then he’s coming, hard enough that his vision fades at the corners, another dreamlike fugue state to add to his increasingly lengthening list. 

Stark kisses him and Bucky doesn’t even care about tasting himself in the back of Stark’s mouth. He doesn’t believe anything that Stark or Steve or Colonel Phillips or anyone says about him--he can’t. They haven’t seen what he’s seen, they haven’t been where he’s been, they haven’t done the things he’s had to do. But Stark’s quiet acceptance of his body and his desperation and the fact that he’s several pieces short of whole somehow makes the last few months feel incredibly real for the first time. He never underestimates the grounding power of Howard Stark again. His ability to make the world feel like it’s still orbiting around the sun, even when it’s at war. 

He does remember Stark’s mouth over the next six months. It makes being Captain America’s trigger finger a little easier than he thinks it should be.   
\--

He is sick when he gets back to camp, burning up with fever. He had taken a slug to the stomach, meant for Steve, and Steve had stitched him up, but it had gotten infected through his own negligence. Stark visits him first, his hand heavy on Bucky’s shoulder. He looks around, makes sure they’re alone, and then moves his hand up to Bucky’s hair, his lips twitching up. He’s not wearing suspenders at all. He looks like he hasn’t slept well in weeks. There is still dirt under his fingernails. “Are you trying to get yourself killed, Sergeant Barnes?” 

Bucky lets his eyes slip shut and doesn’t say anything. “You know it’d tear him up. If you went and did that on his account.” Bucky's eyes snap open. He shakes Stark’s hand out of his hair and turns over, sullenly, even though it puts extra pressure on his infected side. He’ll heal soon and it’ll be a miracle. A miracle of Hydra science. But no one has connected the dots yet and Bucky doesn’t feel like picking up the pen and doing it for them. Stark’s science is machines. Tearing things apart and putting them back together, new and improved with his name stamped all over it. Bucky is surprised he hasn’t noticed that’s exactly what Hydra’s done to him. 

“He loves you, you know. If that’s--something you wanted.” Stark’s hand has moved to the small of Bucky's back, up under his shirt. It feels cold and clammy against Bucky’s feverish skin and too fond for the conversation. Too fond for a few shared cigarettes and a feeling of inadequacy and responsibility when looking at Captain America. “He’s in love with you.” Bucky curls into himself more, but he’s loathe to move completely out of Stark’s touch. And what would Howard Stark know about love? “Not a lot, that’s fair. But I can see the way you two look at each other and if that’s not love, nothing is.” Bucky presses his face into his pillow, tells Stark he’s tired, maybe not up to visitors right now. Stark takes his hand out of his shirt, puts it back in his hair, smoothing it back away from his face. “Okay, James. I’ll be lookin’ for you when you feel better.” 

Bucky actually looks for him when he’s discharged. You can’t even see where Steve stitched him up anymore, his skin back to virgin smooth. The nurses tell him he must be the healthiest man in the war, ignoring the bags under his eyes that are practically scarred on at this point that clearly indicate he’s been taking as little care of himself as possible. Stark’s going over the Hydra weapons with Steve and Agent Carter, explaining that the technology is far too advanced for German engineering alone. Bucky waits back until Stark notices him, his eyes lighting up, but he doesn’t smile. Bucky crosses his arms over his chest. “Sergeant Barnes, back from the dead.” Not quite. 

He finishes the meeting with Steve and Agent Carter as quickly as possible, telling them he’ll give them and the Colonel his final report in the morning. Making it sound like he intends to work all night long, but Bucky can tell by the way he narrows his eyes, he’s gleaned all he can from the weapons already. He has other plans for the evening. 

He’s got his hand in Stark’s hair, pulling hard enough to make Stark bend his back with a hiss and press himself tighter against Bucky. Stark is completely naked, bent over the desk in his makeshift office, knocking an abacus off with a clatter. “So you really have been thinkin’ about me while you were gone, Sergeant Barnes.” 

Bucky sucks the fingers of his left hand into his mouth, working his right hand over himself through his pants. He rubs his thumb against Stark’s opening before pressing one of his spit-slicked fingers in. Stark groans, throwing his head back, his muscles hot and tight around Bucky’s finger. It shuts Stark up pretty effectively, all of his words dissolving into moans as Bucky curls his fingers around that tight ring of muscle. He undoes the fasten of his belt and takes himself out, rubbing the precum covering the head of his cock up inside of Stark, too. 

It actually hurts going in, too raw and tight and stretched, but he grits his teeth and sheaths his entire length in Stark in one, slow, painful motion. There’s sweat all over Stark’s back and his forehead and the sounds he’s making are strangling up in his throat, dying before they can come it. Bucky pulls back and it’s equally painful and Stark’s legs are shaking underneath his, the tips of his fingers white grabbing at the corners of his desk, but he rams himself back in, hard enough to shake the desk under them, breathing hard through his teeth. 

He flips Stark over halfway through when he feels like he’s not going to hold on much longer and Stark pumps himself mercilessly, faster than Bucky can fuck him, his hand a blur. He’s got his other hand up behind his head, holding onto one of the desk drawers, his legs wrapped tight around Bucky’s waist. Sweat is dripping off of Bucky and onto Stark’s chest like huge droplets of rain. Bucky’s entire body is screaming, pushed passed the point of exhaustion, but he wants Stark to come first. Stark has to come first. 

Bucky comes first, all of it cresting over him like a wave. His muscles feel rubbery, but he holds himself taut, jerking his hips against Stark until he’s coming streaks over his own chest. Stark rubs a hand over himself, holds his fingers up to Bucky. Bucky shakes his head, pulls himself out of Stark with a wet sound, shoving himself back in his pants. Stark cleans his fingers himself, his eyes like fire through Bucky. 

“You fuck like you’re ashamed to be fucking, James. It can be more tender than that, you know.” Stark licks at his hand like a cat, somehow not looking out of place, sprawled out on his own desk like a dirty picture. 

“I’m not getting a dishonorable discharge for being tender,” Bucky growls, smoothing his own damp hair back from his forehead. “Besides, that’s how you fuck in a combat zone. But I guess you wouldn’t know anything about that.” 

Stark stretches, hissing in a breath only when he bends over, smiling wryly at Bucky’s attention. “Are you always at war, Sergeant Barnes?” 

Bucky doesn’t answer him, he doesn’t have to. He stays long enough to watch Stark get dressed. There are hand shaped bruises on Stark’s waist, already turning purple. He should feel bad. He doesn’t feel anything.   
\-- 

Steve tells him that Stark makes him sick. He’s a civilian, he’s saying, like it’s a dirty word, and he’s trying to get his fingerprints all over the war, get his name first and foremost in the history books. Bucky refrains from pointing out that Steve himself would not only probably be freezing his ass off in a Brooklyn apartment he couldn’t afford and working in a factory that would probably kill him, but would also still be selling war bonds in tights without Stark's intervention. And Bucky would probably be dead. Or worse. Instead, he pretends to be disinterested in Stark, a ruse that Steve sees right through. 

“You spend a lot of time with him, Buck.” 

“I like science,” Bucky replies, lamely, the lie heavy on his tongue. He has no interest in science, never really has. Especially something like engineering. If it works, it works, he doesn’t have the time or the patience to figure out how. He doesn’t have the vision to see how all the little things add up to a practical whole and he doesn’t see how things fit back together once they’ve been pulled apart. 

“Do you think you can use the repurposed Hydra weapons?” Back to business. Steve lets the lie go, professional to the end. Being Captain America suits him. But Bucky can tell he’s not ready to make the hard choices he’s going to have to soon. Hydra is going to force his hand. They’re taking too many of Hydra’s officers alive. Too many close calls. And they’re not getting the information they need, in part because Steve refuses to treat the captives like anything less than human beings. Steve hasn’t had to walk through one of the death camps yet, though. He might change his mind when they make their way to Austria. 

“Can, yes. Will I? Probably not. They’re--unpredictable. Did you read Stark’s report? Did he ever figure out what their power source is?” 

“He described it as something like arcane electricity. From an outside power source, but somehow contained within the weapons. Much more powerful than electricity, though. I’m surprised he hasn’t told you his theories. Since you’ve been spending so much time together.” Steve’s jaw is set, his eyebrows raised. The look he gives right before he makes final judgments of disapproval. 

“Yeah, well, you spend a lot of time with Agent Carter, and she’s not even American.” Bucky wishes he could take it back as soon as it’s out of his mouth. Steve closes himself off as quickly as a steel trap anytime Bucky mentions Agent Carter. Like Bucky’s too dirty to sully her name. It’s a kick to the gut. 

Bucky has been hiding the unsavory bits and pieces of himself from Steve for years. What he’d really been doing down on the docks all night. How he got extra money when they needed to keep the lights on. How stupidly in love he was with Steve. How his entire world revolved around Steve, protecting Steve even from the depth of his feelings. Since he’s come back from Zola’s table, though, he feels like all the rest of him has been mined out and all that’s left in his hollow center are the things he’s been trying to keep away from Steve. The fact that he’s a cold-blooded killer and not in fact a soldier, Captain America’s trigger finger and little else. The fact that he’s willing to fuck a man he doesn’t love or even like very much because he’s that desperate. The fact that he’s always been less than what Steve expects of him. 

“You should know better than to breathe life into rumors, Bucky. She’s as invaluable to the war effort as Stark is. And she’s not interested in making sure everyone knows what she’s done for this country and getting her name out there, she’s only interested in saving lives.” 

“And the picture of her you’re carrying around? That’s another one of her valuable contributions to the war effort?” 

Steve slams his hand down on the table hard enough to make Bucky feel ready to jump out of his skin. “What is this about, Bucky?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Bucky runs a hand through his hair, trying to calm his nerves. He needs a cigarette. He feels heat rush to his face at the thought of asking Stark for one. He really should just put them on his rations. “I’m glad you’ve got someone, Steve.” 

A lie, but one that’s easier to tell than all of the others.   
\-- 

He’s not sick when he’s falling. He knows that Steve missed his hand by inches. He also knows, well before he hits the ground, that he won’t die. Because he wants to so badly. He’s never gotten anything he wished for. Why would he start now?

 

The Winter Soldier, the ghost story, feels suddenly nauseous when he shoots straight through the windshield, shattering it completely. Like his stomach is weighed down with a ton of rocks, sinking below his feet. He doesn’t even know the targets’ names. He hadn’t cared to learn. The car veers off the road, but not far. He can hear a man shouting, the voice almost familiar. He can also hear through his comm that he should engage at a distance. 

He flips the car in one smooth motion, disobeying the direct order. The woman is not buckled in and she falls straight into all of the cut glass, screaming her husband’s name over and over again. He rips the door off and snaps her neck, easily, silencing the screams that are starting to make his head hurt. He throws her limp body through the broken windshield, ignoring the crunch of her bones breaking. The man has already hit his head on the steering wheel, blood dripping down his face. His eyes are wide and scared, like they always are. The Winter Soldier is death personified and everyone at the end of his trigger knows it. But there’s something else, something that’s piercing straight through the Winter Soldier’s chest in this man’s eyes. Recognition. 

“James, James, listen to me. You don’t have to do this. James. Believe me, if we’d known, we would have done anything to get you out. Steve would have done anything to get you out, I would have helped him. We didn’t know. We should have known. James, please.” The Winter Soldier crosses in front of the car and rips the driver side door off too, an unusual hot and cold feeling spreading down his spine. “You don’t know me, do you? _God_.” The man presses his head against the steering wheel and starts sobbing. They do that sometimes. Piss and shit themselves, too. But this feels different. He looks at the Winter Soldier with tears in his eyes as if all the sadness is not for himself. “What have they done to you? You were the best of us, James, believe me, you were. You deserved-- _God_. I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know. I would have been looking for you, too. At the bottom of every damn Alp until I found you. I didn’t know. I would never have let this happen.” 

The Winter Soldier pulls the comm out of his ear. All he’s hearing is static and a raised voice, the commands all in Russian. His brain is wire mesh, sparked and electrified, and he doesn’t think he knows Russian anymore. He’s listening to this man’s dying proclamation, trying to piece together why his entire body feels like it’s been doused in cold water.

“You must be hearing me. Something is getting through.” The man is breathing hard through his mouth, blood still steadily pumping down from the gouge in his forehead. “You _know_ me. I’m Howard Stark. You met me in World War II. I was your--friend. You used to bum my cigarettes all the time. You’re Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107. Don’t you remember? You haven’t aged a day, God, James, I’m sorry for everything they’ve done to you. I can help you. Let’s get out of here and I can help you remember.” 

Static in his head, metal fingers scraping out his memories like his brain is a bowl of mush, and the Winter Soldier doesn’t want to remember, all of his training clicking back into place. He puts the comm back in his ear, hearing nothing but breathing on the other side. He snaps the man’s neck, place his head gently back on the steering wheel. 

He can tell by the laugh on the other end of the comm that the mission is far from over. _We’re wiping you and starting over, American_. He throws up, all acid.


End file.
